Life Goes On
by veronicahague
Summary: No matter how much it hurts, Rose must move on from Jack's death and really live her life, like he would have wanted. She never would have guessed that it would be another passenger on the Titanic who would show her how to love again.


Rose knew she was lucky; she had an amazing career, two kids she adored, and a husband she loved more than she ever thought would be possible after everything that had happened that cold night all those years ago. The night the Titanic sank was one of the worst of her life. When she thought about it she still felt the sharp pains of the freezing cold water numbing her legs and wrapping around her spine.

But that night had changed her life in ways that transcended the horror of the black water: it had also brought her love. And not just the heady, overwhelming love that she'd experienced with Jack. It had also brought another type of love – one that had started out as companionship but had gradually bloomed into something more. Back then, she hadn't even known his name. He'd just been some officer in a uniform with a welsh accent. But he'd been the only one to turn his boat around, to look for survivors. To save her life even though it was too late for Jack.

She'd arrived in America shaken. She didn't know anyone there, other than her mother and Cal, and she was determined to never let them know that she was still alive. So she had foraged on, alone. She took Jack's last name, started a new life as Rose Dawson, and left her old life behind her, buried underwater with the wreckage of the ship that was never supposed to sink.

She lived in New York for a week in total denial before it all became too much and she broke down in tears in the middle of a grocery store, holding some fruit and a container of water, all she could afford. She went to the docks, to stare out on the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. Jack was everywhere – in the statue of liberty he would never be able to see again. In the trains heading west, through his childhood home. In the men holding hands with the women they loved, smiling to themselves as they walked down the street.

He had seen her first. Like her, 5th Officer Harold Lowe was haunted by the faces of the dead. He hated himself for not turning back just a few moments sooner. How many lives he could have saved. How many children would still have parents? How many wives would still have husbands? He would never know. It was her hair that caught his eye. Red as the flower she was named after and a fiery personality to match. He wandered over to her, uncertain. He wanted, no, he _needed_ someone to talk to. Someone who understood. A friend.

She turned around just as he approached, sensing him. At first she didn't recognize him, he looked so different without his officer's cap and clothes. But then her eyes fell on his face. And behind the pain in his eyes she recognized the kindness. These were the eyes she saw, the eyes of the man who had saved her from death in the icy water. Before she could think about what she was doing, she collapsed in his arms and sobbed.

For four years they did nothing more than talk. Occasionally, when the pain was too much for her to bear, Rose would let him hold her. But it was always strictly for comfort. Never anything more. Then one afternoon, four years past the week the great ship sank, he looked at her differently. The kindness was still there, as was the compassion, but there was something more. She saw from the expression on his face that he saw the same thing reflected in hers, and their relationship evolved into something that neither of them had ever intended to happen. While the love she had for Jack would always be there as something pure and unbreakable, it did not mean there would never be room for another. With the memory of Jack's last words to her, Rose let herself fall for the man in front of her and experienced something she never thought she would again: love.

They were married a year later. Only his family came to the wedding. Four months later she was pregnant. They bought a house in the suburbs and filled it with art. He got a job at a firm on Wall Street. She started her own theatre company.

For 65 years they woke up together every morning and kissed each other before bed every night. Then one day, she was the only one to wake up. He was 85 years old when he died. She filled her days with painting, creating beautiful works of art that her grandchildren would look at with awe and hang on the walls of their own homes, for their children to smile at.

And she was happy. But every so often, she would let her mind wander; wondering what life would have been like with Jack. Would they have stayed in the city, spending their nights dancing and their days grinning madly at jokes no one else would get? Would they too have eventually moved to the suburbs, bought a house and filled it with children? Of course, it was futile. Life could be cruel, but it was unchangeable. She could never have had that life, no matter how much she longed for it sometimes.

And besides, she had loved her husband. And he had loved her. What more could Rose ask for?


End file.
